Revolutionary Activities Abroad

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Indian revolutionaries established bases in Europe, North America, and East Asia to support the Indian freedom struggle. These overseas networks provided safe havens away from British surveillance, allowing revolutionaries to collect funds, manufacture and smuggle weapons, publish anti-colonial literature, and seek foreign diplomatic aid.

London Hub: India House and Shyamji Krishna Varma

London served as the earliest major center of Indian revolutionary organization abroad.

Formation of India House (1905)

Shyamji Krishna Varma, a lawyer and scholar from Gujarat, founded the Indian Home Rule Society in London in February 1905. He established India House in Highgate, London, as a hostel for Indian students. The venue quickly turned into an operational center for anti-British organizing.

• Scholarships: Shyamji Krishna Varma created the Shivaji Fellowships and Maharana Pratap Fellowships to bring radical Indian students to Britain.
• Nationalist Journal: He published The Indian Sociologist, an anti-colonial monthly journal that advocated Indian independence.
• Key Associates: Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Madan Lal Dhingra, Lala Hardayal, and V. V. S. Aiyar worked closely within the India House network.

Assassination of Curzon-Wyllie (1909)

On July 1, 1909, Madan Lal Dhingra shot and killed Lt. Col. William Hutt Curzon-Wyllie, political aide-de-camp to the Secretary of State for India, at the Imperial Institute in London. Dhingra was arrested, tried, and executed at Pentonville Prison on August 17, 1909. Facing British crackdown, Shyamji Krishna Varma moved his base to Paris, while V. D. Savarkar was arrested and extradited to India.

Paris and Berlin Centers

Following police operations in London, revolutionaries relocated to continental Europe.

Paris India Society

Bhikaiji Cama, Munchershah Burjorjee Godrej, and S. R. Rana established the Paris India Society in 1905. Madame Cama edited the monthly journal Bande Mataram from Paris (printed in Geneva) after the publication was banned in India.

• Unveiling the National Flag: At the International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart, Germany, on August 22, 1907, Madame Cama unfurled an early version of the Indian national flag, featuring green, saffron, and red stripes with eight lotus flowers and the words Vande Mataram.
• Pistol Smuggling: The Paris group purchased semi-automatic Browning pistols and sent them secretly to members of Abhinav Bharat in Maharashtra, which were later used in the Nasik Conspiracy Case.

Berlin Committee and the Zimmermann Plan

During World War I, Indian revolutionaries in Europe formed the Berlin Committee for Indian Independence in 1914 with support from the German Foreign Office.

• Key Members: Virendranath Chattopadhyaya (brother of Sarojini Naidu), Bhupendranath Dutta, Abhinash Bhattacharya, and Lala Hardayal.
• The Zimmermann Plan: The committee devised a scheme to incite an armed rebellion in British India using German funds and weapons. They planned arms shipments to Bengal and Punjab, supported military mutinies, and targeted British garrisons.

The Ghadar Movement in North America

Punjabi immigrants, laborers, and students in the United States and Canada formed an international revolutionary network in 1913.

Structure and Propaganda

Founded in Astoria, Oregon, as the Pacific Coast Hindustan Association, the group adopted the name Ghadar Party. Its headquarters, Yugantar Ashram, operated out of San Francisco.

• Leadership: Sohan Singh Bhakna served as President, Lala Hardayal as General Secretary, and Pandit Kanshi Ram as Treasurer.
• Publication: The party published The Ghadar newspaper in Urdu, Gurmukhi, Gujarati, and Hindi. The first issue appeared on November 1, 1913. Poems from the paper were compiled into booklets titled Ghadar di Gunj.

Komagata Maru Incident and 1915 Armed Uprising

In March 1914, Baba Gurdit Singh chartered the Japanese vessel S.S. Komagata Maru to carry 376 Indian passengers to Vancouver, challenging Canada’s restrictive immigration laws. Canadian authorities turned the ship back. When it docked at Budge Budge near Calcutta in September 1914, British police opened fire, killing 22 passengers. This incident, combined with the start of World War I, prompted thousands of Ghadarites to return to India to organize a military insurrection. Rash Behari Bose and Vishnu Ganesh Pingle coordinated the planned revolt, setting February 21, 1915, as the date for a synchronized military mutiny. Police informers leaked the plot, leading to mass arrests and the First Lahore Conspiracy Case trial.

Provisional Government of India in Kabul (1915)

As part of the Indo-German diplomatic initiative, an Indian expedition reached Afghanistan in December 1915 to secure support from Emir Habibullah Khan.

• Establishment: Raja Mahendra Pratap and Maulana Barkatullah established the Provisional Government of India in Kabul on December 1, 1915.
• Leadership Roles: Raja Mahendra Pratap served as President, Maulana Barkatullah as Prime Minister, and Ubaidullah Sindhi as Minister for Home Affairs.
• Silk Letters Movement (Reshmi Rumal Tehrik): Ubaidullah Sindhi and Mahmud Hasan Deobandi sent secret messages written on yellow silk cloth to coordinate an anti-British uprising with aid from Ottoman Turkey and Imperial Germany. British intelligence intercepted these letters in 1916.

Key Revolutionary Organizations and International Bases

Indian Independence League and Azad Hind Government in East Asia

During World War II, the center of revolutionary action abroad shifted to South-East Asia.

Rash Behari Bose and Tokyo Initiatives

Rash Behari Bose, living in Japan since 1915, organized the Tokyo Conference in March 1942, establishing the Indian Independence League. In June 1942, at the Bangkok Conference, the League formally invited Subhas Chandra Bose to lead the movement in East Asia. Captain Mohan Singh formed the first division of the Indian National Army (INA) from Indian prisoners of war captured by Japan in Malaya and Singapore.

Azad Hind Government (1943)

Subhas Chandra Bose arrived in Singapore in July 1943 and took charge of the Indian Independence League and the INA (Azad Hind Fauj).

• Proclamation: On October 21, 1943, Subhas Chandra Bose announced the establishment of the Provisional Government of Free India (Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad Hind) in Singapore.
• International Recognition: Nine Axis-aligned countries recognized the government, including Japan, Germany, Italy, and the Philippines.
• Rani Jhansi Regiment: A women’s regiment formed under the command of Captain Lakshmi Swaminathan (Sahgal).
• Imphal and Kohima Campaigns: The INA fought alongside Japanese forces on the Indo-Burma front in 1944, raising the Indian flag at Moirang, Manipur.

Essential Facts

Shyamji Krishna Varma appointed V. D. Savarkar, Lala Hardayal, and Madan Lal Dhingra as managers of India House affairs in London. Madame Bhikaiji Cama served as private secretary to Dadabhai Naoroji in London before moving to Paris to launch her revolutionary operations. The San Francisco headquarters of the Ghadar Party was named Yugantar Ashram after the revolutionary journal Jugantar published in Bengal. In the Hindu-German Conspiracy Trial (1917–1918) held in San Francisco, American authorities prosecuted Ghadarites and German diplomats for violating US neutrality laws during World War I. The original silk letters written by Ubaidullah Sindhi detailing the plot against British rule are preserved in the British Library in London. Raja Mahendra Pratap traveled on a passport issued by Germany to meet Emir Habibullah Khan in Kabul in 1915. Subhas Chandra Bose launched the Azad Hind Radio network from Germany in 1942, addressing Indians in multiple languages to counteract British propaganda. Subhas Chandra Bose traveled from Germany to Japan aboard the German submarine U-180 and transferred to the Japanese submarine I-29 off the coast of Madagascar in 1943.